


solo custody

by owlinaminor



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Episode 69 spoilers, Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-17 02:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11842383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/pseuds/owlinaminor
Summary: "He’s stopped asking about her,” Mavis says.





	solo custody

**Author's Note:**

> was anybody else thinking about why merle seemed to suddenly get solo custody of mavis and mookie? no? just me? okay.

There is a knock on Merle’s door.

He sets his beer carefully on his bedside table and slips a bookmark into the book of botanically based erotica open on his lap before answering, “Come in.”

The door opens slowly, pushed like a portal from another plane, and Mavis steps through.  Her curly dark hair is pulled into two twin braids, her light blue sweater (a present from Magnus, who has inexplicably taken up knitting) buttoned one button off.  She is not wearing her glasses, and it makes her face look younger, somehow – the line of her nose softer, her cheeks rounder, without the wide circular frames to juxtapose their shapes.  Her feet are bare.

“Hey,” Merle says.  He pats the space next to him in the bed.  It’s king-sized, piled with a fluffy comforter and ten different kinds of pillows (never let it be said that Merle Hightower Highchurch doesn’t know how to relax.)

Mavis slips into the room, turns to close the door with a soft click behind her, then pads towards the bed.  She fits perfectly between Merle and the wall, her head positioned just beneath a landscape painting he hung there a few weeks back.

For a moment, neither of them speaks.  The sound of the ocean is faintly audible through the open window: the tide rolls in and out, in and out, like the breathing of a giant.

“He’s stopped asking about her,” Mavis says.

Marle reaches out one arm (the flesh one, not the tree), and drapes it lightly behind his daughter’s waist – asking for permission.  She glances at him and gives a slight nod, so he reaches closer, pulls her into his side.  She is warm and soft beside him, not a breakable thing but a thing worthy of armor, and he is struck by two twin desires – to encase her high in a stone tower, and to let her set herself aflame.

“Kids don’t really get object permanence,” Merle tells her.  “You know that.  It’s healthy for him to move on.”

“Yeah, but she’s – she _was_ our mom.”  Mavis’ voice is a sudden crescendo – piano to forte in one self-correction.  “She gave her life to protect him, but a few weeks later all he can talk about is picture books and how much he wants to go on adventures.”

Merle is not good at this.  He’s a cleric, sure, but clerics only ever heal bodies, not minds, not hearts.  And yet – he sees, suddenly, the day after Story and Song, two tiny dwarves hands clasped before a pile of bodies, like a pair of saplings sheared from the sun –

Merle is not good at this.  But that’s never stopped him at anything else.

“Have I ever told you what Pan said to me when I got my connection with him back?” Merle asks.

Mavis brightens, her eyes suddenly wide and glittering.  _“No?_   You talked to _Pan?”_

Merle laughs, takes a swig of his beer, and lets the words slip into place, the way he used to when he prepared to give sermons.

“Yeah, I talked to Pan.  He said that he technically isn’t my Pan, but I would always be his Merle.”

There’s a beat, a bird call from somewhere in the distance.

“That’s real poetic, dad,” Mavis says, “but what does it have to do with Mookie forgetting Mom?”

“It’s a parallel situation, kinda,” Merle explains.  “You and Mookie won’t always actively be your mom’s kids – because she isn’t here to wash behind your ears, or yell at you for going outside without a sweater, or shield you from the advancing forces of darkness – but she’ll always be your mom.  She’ll always be there watching out for you, in your memories.  In your hearts.  She’ll be believing in you.”

Merle looks down at the comforter, tightens his arm around his daughter.  “It’s not a perfect metaphor.”

“I think it’s great, dad,” Mavis says quietly.

She doesn’t look at him, but he can see the tracks on her cheeks – eyes glistening for a different reason now.

“And I’ll be believing in you, too,” Merle tells her.  “If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s believing.”

And now Mavis looks at him.  She looks younger without her glasses – the line of her nose softer, her cheeks rounder – and she looks more like her mother.  She has grown so much since she was a tiny thing in Merle’s arms – he has missed so much.  He will not miss any more.

“I think you’re good at a lot more than that, Dad,” she says.

Merle pulls her close, and he presses a kiss to her hair, and he _believes._

Outside, the ocean is rolling – tide coming in and out, in and out.  The breath of a giant, or the heartbeat of a world.

 

 

“So, I hear you want to go on adventures,” Merle tells his son the next morning, over pancakes.  “How’d you like to try a cave exploration on for size?  Maybe this afternoon?”

Mookie shrieks and tips back in his chair, spilling maple syrup all over the table.

And Merle turns to his daughter, says, “You can come too, you know.”

She does not shriek, but she does smile – a brilliant smile, bright and full of wonder.

**Author's Note:**

> i want to make it known that my word doc for this fic is titled "clint mcelroy is bad at dnd but good at being a dad.doc"
> 
> talk taz to me!!!! [twitter](https://twitter.com/owlinaminor) / [tumblr](http://owlinaminor.tumblr.com/)


End file.
